Staff Picks (May): Executive Outcomes OGN

Apr 22, 2015

Were I to mention "Africa" and "Hermes Press," you would initially think of The Phantom, not a story based on true events in that area of the world. Executive Outcomes is a departure from the norm for Hermes Press and a great start into their expansion beyond their collections of classic comic strips and comic books.

Based on a true story by Nick Bicanic (director and producer of Shadow Company, a LEO Award-winning documentary about mercenaries), with script by M. Zachary Sherman and art by Emmanuel Xerx Javier, Executive Outcomes is an action-packed story of mercenaries who are contracted to bring stability to the war-torn West African country of Sierra Leone. Given recent events throughout Africa and the countries fighting groups like Boko Haram, this story has a feeling of authenticity and not an episode of Strike Back. This is real action to the max.

Major Cobus Claassens, commander of a team of 150 mercenaries, quickly discovers that no amount of soldiering can prepare his men for the vicious arena of butchery, treachery, and mounting political pressures his soldiers will experience while trying to do what is just. What difference does winning make if they lose their humanity in the process? Do you stick your head in the sand and let genocide occur or do you try and make a difference to a people?

While this is not the usual book from Hermes, I am more than happy to make space for this in my collection, not with my G.I. Joes but with Eisner’s Last Day in Vietnam, Kubert’s Yossel, and Max Brook’s Harlem Hellfighters.